- Title
- State
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-
- Date
- January 1984
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-
- Place
- ["North Carolina, United States"]
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State
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When Windmills
Whirled On The
Tar Heel Coast
How could so many have been so soon
forgotten?
tty TUCKER R. LITTLETON
the annual Smilhwick
Л
ward for the hen newspaper or nuwnlnr article
on N.C. IliMory was niven for this article, published here in /'AW.
After a year’s search. I’ve learned
that windmill information is subject to
turn up almost anywhere. In fact, so
much useful material has been
uncovered in the course of the year’s
research that it virtually defies being
condensed into article-length treat¬
ment.
An Astonishing Number
During the early years of the Civil
War. Charles F. Johnson was a part of
the Union campaign against the North
Carolina sounds. Johnson, who wrote
an account of his w ar experiences and
observations in the Outer Banks region
entitled The Long Roll, was astounded
at the number of w indmills dotting the
North Carolina coast. He wrote that in
the northern part of the Tar Heel coast
he had seen more windmills than he
had "supposed were in existence in the
whole country . . . ." While my re¬
search has show n that Johnson was not
exaggerating, I find it hard to under¬
stand how so many windmills could
have been so soon forgotten. But to¬
day’s Tar Heels arc largely unaware
that there were ever windmills on our
coast, and many of my inquiries re¬
garding windmills have been greeted
with such replies as. "You've got lobe
kidding!"
Nevertheless, the historic coastal
windmills, almost totally belonging to
the type called "post mills." reached
their greatest abundance during the
mid- 1800‘s and then rapidly declined
near the end of the nineteenth century.
By the beginning of the twentieth cen¬
tury. perhaps not more than a dozen of
the historic windmills remained; and
7
Last fall when the editor of this
magazine suggested that I write an ar¬
ticle on North Carolina's coastal
windmills of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, probably neither
of us had a realistic idea of how much
time and research would be necessary
or how productive the search for
windmill sites would be. Now after a
year's research, conducted as time and
circumstance permitted. 155 windmills
have been documented for North Car¬
olina’s Outer Coastal Plain. And I have
only begun to scratch the surface of the
numerous available sources of infor¬
mation.
The search for windmill data and
photographs has been both challenging
and interesting. In trying to explore
every possible avenue of information.
I have examined county histories,
nineteenth-century business direc¬
tories. maps and charts, photograph
collections. Civil War military his¬
tories. deeds, wills, old newspapers,
and numerous other sources including
personal interviews. To copy a photo¬
graph of one w indmill formerly located
near Fairfield. N.C.. I even made a trip
to J. C.'s Motel at Fairfield, where the
proprietor. J. C. Sadler, proudly dis¬
plays in his motel office a photograph
of the windmill for which his ancestor
was one in its long line of operators.
Mr. Sadler's business card carries the
line. "Come By To Sec Us Some¬
time." Well, if the reader goes by. be
sure to see the windmill picture, too.
In the Low country
0»
Hydo County, neor S-on Quortor. this photo wo» token about 1 904. It
I» о
typical "po»t
mill”, ot were almott all on the coait, with the body mounted and turning on an upright post to tacc the wind.
When the wind changed direction» the miller could foce the mill toward it by puthingon the "toil pole" and
wheel, (photo courtoty o( the N.C. Stole Archives)
THE STATE, January i«8«
